Scientific Imagination of Lower Secondary School Students in Thailand

Chaninan Pruekpramool, Ed.D.(Science Education)

Science Education Center, Faculty of Science,

Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand

Email: Chaninan@g.swu.ac.th

1

Overview

1 • Introduction

2 • Research objectives

3 • Research methodology

4 • Results

5 • Conclusion and discussion

2

Introduction

"Imagination is more important than knowledge.

For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination

embraces the entire world, stimulating progress,

giving birth to evolution.“

Albert Einstein (1929)

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Introduction

• Imagination is a unique system of human thinking. It is related to the process of finding and improving ideas.

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Imagination

Promoting students to memorize

Promote meaningful and

effective learning

Creating innovation

Thai students have low abilities

in learning science.To achieve a

deeper understanding of nature,

scientific imagination has taken

an important role in science

teaching and learning.

5

Introduction

Scientific imagination

was defined as an ability to construct the pictures, models

and stories in an individual’s brain in order to understand

the problems or situations based on the accurate scientific knowledge that leads to the development of creativity.

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Introduction

• The results from the study of 270 Thai in-service science

teachers’ opinions toward scientific imagination revealed that

scientific imagination is important for both students and

teachers. It is the main key to success in the goal of learning science.

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Introduction

Scientific imagination is the foundation of creativity which is one of the necessary skills for the 21st century skills.

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Creativity

Scientific imagination

However, thinking ability is quite difficult to measure.

The research instrument needs

to be a well-designed tool with appropriate criteria.

Introduction

Using familiar situations related to students’ lives will help students to further their thinking ability.

This research aimed

1) to develop scientific imagination test for lower

secondary school students and

2) to study and compare scientific imagination of lower

secondary school students among grade 7-9

students.

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Research objectives

The samples used in this study were 213 lower secondary school

students from 6 schools in Bangkok, Loei, Kanchanaburi, Rayong

and Nonthaburi provinces. The samples voluntarily applied to join

this research by themselves and using purposive sampling.

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Research methodology

Levels of study n

Grade 7 85

Grade 8 64

Grade 9 64

Total 213

The scientific imagination test was composed of four situations;

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Research instrument

1 • The planet

2 • Teka country

3 • Electronic waste

4 • Songkran festival (water festival in Thailand).

The questions were in the form of open-ended questions related to students 'lives and the context of Thailand.

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Research instrument

The test was verified by five experts.

Tried out with 45 lower secondary school students, 15 students in

each grade level.

Appropriateness

mean scores were

in the range

between 4.20 – 4.80

The congruence

scores were

equalled 1.00 in all situations.

The reliability of

the test using

Cronbach’s alpha

coefficient was equalled 0.888

The congruence

mean score

between

questions and

criteria was

equalled 1.00.

Example of the TEST

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Research instrument

Mission 1

Mission 2

Present the situation

and ask 2 questions

- Identify the problems

from the situation

- Think about the ideas

to solves those

problem

(as many as possible)

- Draw the picture of

the invention to solve

the problems and

relate to scientific

knowledge.

Results

• Descriptive statistics

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Levels of study n Mean SD

Grade 7 85 30.76 9.242

Grade 8 64 35.69 10.655

Grade 9 64 31.67 8.621

Total 213 32.52 9.703

• There was a statistically significant difference at .05 level

between groups of students as analysed by one-way ANOVA (F =5.248, p = .006).

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Results

df SS MS F p-value

Between

Groups 2 950.039 475.019 5.248 .006

Within

Groups 210 19009.153 90.520

Total 212 19959.192

There were no statistically significant differences between scientific

imagination scores of students in grade 7 and 9 (p = .847), as well as, students in grade 8 and 9 (p= .060).

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Results

Comparisons MD Std. Error p-value

Grade 7 and 8 - 4.923* 1.575 .008

Grade 7 and 9 - .907 1.575 .847

Grade 8 and 9 4.016 1.682 .060

Conclusion and discussion

• The quality of the scientific imagination test was in a high

level.

• One of the experts suggested that researcher should conduct

in-person interviews with some students in order to receive in-

depth data.

• Some students did not answer the questions. Moreover, most

of students’ answers did reflect their imagination but not scientific imagination.

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Acknowledgement This paper is part of the project “The Development of Science Learning Activities Package to Promote Scientific Imagination in the Classroom for Lower Secondary School Students”, financed by Srinakharinwirot University, Contract No. 164/2558.

I offer my regards to the Strategic Wisdom and Research Institute and Science Education Center of Srinakharinwirot University (SWU), Thailand, for financially supporting me in all respects during the time at the conference.

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PR SciEd Center SWU

Science Education Center, Faculty of Science Srinakharinwirot University

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Thank you

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Q & A

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